


The Cycle

by Blue_Iris



Category: The Path (Video Game)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Headcanon, Horror, One Shot, Other, Ruby-centric, hints at character death, hints at something surreal, second-person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-29
Updated: 2013-11-29
Packaged: 2018-01-03 00:02:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1063277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blue_Iris/pseuds/Blue_Iris
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Ruby looks up from her book and wakes up from her daydreams, she realizes that her sisters are gone; that she has been left alone in their blood red apartment.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Cycle

* * *

When you look up from your book, you realize that your sisters are gone and you are now alone.

It invokes such an eerie feeling, being alone in this small, blood red apartment.  Despite how morbid you are and how nonchalant you act around them, you have become so used to the sound and presence of your sisters around you—even the quiet one, who is always playing with her rabbit and lost in her own little world of nature and its joys—that you never thought they would ever leave you alone. Being surrounded by silence and emptiness bothers you now, but you can’t recall why.

This is what you wanted, isn’t it? Emptiness, a space of your own; time so you can fester in the dark abyss that is your mind, with no interruptions?

Yes, this is what you wanted—but not like this.

Where did they go? _Why_ did they go?

“Ruby,” a voice ( _Mother_ , you remember. _We call her Mother_.) calls to you from the kitchen. “Would you please go off to Grandmother’s house for me? She hasn’t been feeling well lately, and I think some wine and cakes would make her feel better.”

You hesitate. How is a bottle of wine and some sweets supposed to make an elderly woman feel better? Shouldn’t Mother be asking you to bring medicine? Nothing about this makes sense.

“Please, sweetheart? I sent your sisters out a while ago, but they haven’t come back,” Mother says, her voice soothing and somewhat playful. “They are probably helping with Grandmother already, silly girls. Would you please also get your sisters and take them home? We have visitors coming later, and I would like for us to all be there.”

You blink. There’s something odd about that statement, you know this—but you also know that Mother has no reason to lie  to you or to hurt you. She is Mother. All she has ever wanted is for you and your sisters to be polite young ladies who are happy and safe, forever and ever. You’re so silly to think otherwise. Silly, silly Ruby.

So, feeling reassured, you nod and go over to the kitchen door. The shadowy arm that belongs to your Mother hands you a straw basket packed with wine and cakes. You take hold of it and then proceed to the door—but before you put your hand on the doorknob, Mother tells you one last thing.

“Oh, and remember dear Ruby, make sure to stay on the path.”

* * *

The path to Grandmother’s house is not too far from home, but with your condition, you end up taking the bus there. It’s a dirt road that meanders at its side, though it consistently points forward. There’s a forest that surrounds it on either side, one that is so dense that you find yourself wondering how big it is from the inside. Other than that, there’s really nothing special about the path. 

Despite feeling how much your bum leg weighs you down, you begin walking down the path. The sun is out and the skies are clear and blue—a perfect day for everyone except you. You wish that there was rain instead, or at least mist. As far as you’re concerned, people like you aren’t meant for the light; darkness and cloudy days are your friends.

(However, you remember a time when you liked the sun, when you had friends and not just your sisters and your crap leg as company, when you didn’t look forward to death. Back when you hair was green not dyed black, high school wasn’t hell, and you—)

When you catch sight of a stone monolith with a cross over what seems like a bowl of holy water, you pause. You have never seen that before. Is there a church nearby? A cemetery? You glance at the forest. There’s no other location to search, except maybe Grandmother’s house. But you’ve been at Grandmother’s enough times to know that there isn’t much around except a lake. ( _Right?_ ) Ergo, if you really want to find the place this monolith led to, there is just the forest.

Then you remember Mother’s words, the warning she always tells you and your sisters: “Stay on the path.”

You look down at the path, then at the direction where Grandmother’s house lay. Surely, there’s no harm in straying _just this once_ , right? You could always find your way back. It’s just a forest, after all.

So, despite yourself, you step away from the path and go into the woods.

The forest really is bigger on the inside, much bigger than you expected. For a brief moment, you are intimidated, but the feeling quickly goes away. The deeper you go, the more the atmosphere goes dark and gray; you find yourself smiling or something that resembles it. This scene is much more your style. So dreary, so much decay—it’s perfect.

You never find the cemetery, but you do come across other areas and objects, things that you’re certain shouldn’t be in a forest so dark. Such as that field you relaxed in a while back ( _How long have I been here...?_ ); the sun was leaking through the trees and shining down on the patch of grass and red wildflowers. You picked a few of them and put them in your basket, feeling some rare nostalgia and warmth when you touched them. They reminded you of Grandmother.

Then there was that television that had been tuned into static, that wall that had a smiley face tagged on it—which you promptly changed into a sad face with the can of paint—a broken down car, what looks like a detached part of a building surrounded by bullets, a syringe, a knife, a dirty bathtub, an empty shopping cart, a plush armchair, and that too familiar looking wheelchair. ( _How...is that_ here _?_ ) Each object brought images in your mind’s eye, images that were connected somehow, but didn’t seem to have much meaning.

Yes, you come across many objects and areas, many that look way out of place in this dense forest—but none of them beats the playground.

The playground looks abandoned, and it seems like it’s been this way for a while. Many of the metal objects, such as the pole holding the swings, have begun to rust. The wood on the benches have rotted, though they haven’t broken off. You feel a thrill being in the playground. All this rust and decay—you have never seen anything more beautiful.

However, you quickly realize it; you are not alone.

You see a blonde boy who looks too old to go to your school, but still young enough to look boyish, near the end of the playground. He is dragging something wrapped up in a rug, something that looks big and heavy enough to be a person, and for some reason that intrigues you even more. He is someone with secrets, dark morbid secrets—just like you. You wonder if he has the same view as you, if he is also involved with this game of chasing death.

You watch as he sits down on a bench, not yet aware of your presence. He takes out a cigarette and lights it up; and then he leans back, spreading his legs and arms in a relaxed position. You can’t help but notice how tightly his black shirt has stretched over his broad chest and how those jeans look on his form.

He smirks and gives you a cool glance with his gray eyes, and you realize you’ve been caught. Heat rises to your cheeks; hopefully, your white makeup hides it.

He moves over a bit down the bench, then nods at you, giving you a silent offer. You feel the urge to join him, to talk to him, to feel like you belong around _someone_ , but a feeling makes you pause, a familiar one—the feeling that _this has happened before_.

You don’t like the feeling; it makes you feel sick. It makes you want to turn back, to run back to the path and head to Grandmother’s house, where your sisters must be, where it’s _safe_.

Then, for some damn reason, you look back into his eyes and you wonder about the benefits of “safe” and staying on the path. It’s just rules that Mother has made up to restrict you and your sisters, trapping you, keeping you away from everything _fun_ and _exciting_ and everything that could make you _happy_.

Despite how his smirk has widened, as if in victory, you find yourself moving towards him. You sit down next to him.

* * *

She watches as the girl sits down and she feels like crying. Despite the dark cloud the girl in red and black keeps over her head, the girl in white had so much hope for her—she holds hope for all these young women in red, even though they always manage to go into the same scenarios over and over and _over_.

She always makes sure she’s there, always makes sure to try and lead them to safety—to save them when she can—but unfortunately, it doesn’t always work. The Wolves always finds them.

And that _thing_ the girls in red call Mother always leads them to the Wolves.

She hates how she can’t hear what the Wolf is whispering to the girl in red and black, how she can’t speak or scream out a warning; how she has been reduced to just watching and not being able to do something. She hates that she doesn’t succeed in bringing all the girls to the path. She hates how walking the path just starts the girls’ journeys all over again. She hates that “Mother” has removed any powers she or Grandmother has, how “Mother” has struck this deal with the Wolf. ( _Mothers are supposed to keep their children safe..._ )

Most of all, she hates that she can only do something in the end, when all the girls have met the Wolf and gone to Grandmother’s house—she hates that saving them just brings about the beginning of this never-ending cycle.

**Author's Note:**

> So, I have my own headcanons about Tale of Tales' _The Path_ , and a lot of them are based around the LiveJournal entries the Red sisters had posted before the game was released. Sure, the entries are different, because each sister is different and all that—but there's one element that connects them, and it's the mysterious strangers that their Mother invites into their home.
> 
> Now, from what I remember, Robin and Rose don't really acknowledged these visitors, but Ruby, Carmen, and Scarlet are very much aware of them.
> 
> Soon after that, they all stop posting and the game is released.
> 
> Now, I get that whatever these girls experience are experiences that are meant to help them grow. I just find it weird that this growth is represented through a "death." I also find it suspicious that their Mother would let strangers into their home to look at all the girls. All of it just brings a lot of implications in my mind. Also, why is it the Grandmother only wakes up at certain times, only to be "asleep" again?
> 
> It's all just very odd and suspicious, and this is the result of my thoughts on it.


End file.
